Senior Category Marketing Manager

First Quality was founded in 1989 and has grown to be a global privately held company with over 4,000 employees. Its corporate offices are in Great Neck, New York, with manufacturing facilities and offices in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia, and Canada. First Quality is a diversified family of companies manufacturing consumer products ranging from Absorbent Hygiene (adult incontinence, feminine care, and baby care), Tissue (bath and towel), and Industrial (print and packaging materials), serving institutional and retail markets throughout the world. First Quality focuses on private label and branded product lines.

The Senior Category Marketing Manager role on our Absorbent Hygiene Marketing team focuses on our baby products and wipes categories. This role is responsible for overseeing the planning, development, and execution of the category innovation and marketing initiatives; and is vital in influencing the category business strategies to achieve long-term growth. The role is primarily responsible for generating profitable growth through successful innovation and marketing strategies for B2B and B2C channels.

Principal Accountabilities/Responsibilities:

• Lead the category strategies, in collaboration with category business unit, by developing the innovation strategy and product pipeline, conduct category/competitive analysis to validate size of market, validate consumer acceptance and validate the effectiveness from a technical, operational and finance strategy to ensure we are meeting corporate goals.
• Lead the distribution of the category value proposition through an omni-channel messaging strategy and targeted to key audiences, using market research, pricing, promotional, product marketing, traditional and digital advertising, and public relations.
• Manage product portfolio, identifying end of life and product/count optimizations.
• Partners closely with key internal stakeholders to determine product strategies around pricing, promotion, product, and merchandising, while coordinating and outlining clear actions to grow market share.
• Analyze consumers trends, deep understanding of buyer’s path to purchase to help in identifying the who, what, when and why behind the decision they make, which aids in the development of innovation and marketing campaigns.
• Maintain and manage competitive intelligence and comparisons through tracking global trends, real time insights (ratings & reviews and other technology platforms) and executing qualitative and quantitative research.
• Partner with Sales Ambassadors to cultivate key customer relationships to align on sales strategies to drive results.
• Develop product messaging that effectively differentiates product features/benefits from competitive set to drive acquisition from customer and consumers.
• Develop sales tools, videos, digital content and packaging that highlights unique product benefits.

The ideal candidate should possess the following:

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business or other relevant discipline; Master’s degree/MBA a plus.
• 5 years blended experience in the areas of Sales, Marketing, Market Research, or Category Development/Management, with at least 3 years of experience in marketing (product marketing, brand marketing, customer/segment marketing).
• Solid understanding and experience working with Nielsen & IRI
• Able to travel approximately 30%
• Strong verbal and written communications skills.
• Strong project management skills.
• Excellent presentation skills
• Solid relationship building and collaboration skills – internally & externally
• Solid experience in Microsoft Office software (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.)

First Quality is committed to protecting information under the care of First Quality Enterprises commensurate with leading industry standards and applicable regulations. As such, First Quality provides at least annual training regarding data privacy and security to employees who, as a result of their role specifications, may come in to contact with sensitive data.

First Quality is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification, or protected Veteran status.